Oracle Blog

Wednesday Aug 27, 2008

Back from a true week of vacation: thanks to the hotel's internet service provider's inability
to maintain IP addresses consistently during a 24-hour period, I had almost no IMAP service
and therefore no email. A week of bakery-fueled breakfasts, days of reading by the pool, and
some random boogie boarding were a huge win.

First book I finished on the trip: Neal Peart's Traveling Music, a bit of a departure
from Roadshow and Ghost Rider in that he didn't write it to chronicle a momentous
occasion in his personal or professional life; he wrote it because he wanted to capture the
backstory of his own musical influences. So the storylines wander, diverge, meander into
seemingly unrelated areas to add color or depth. Of the three, I found it the most readable,
probably because it's more about music than travel, and I thoroughly enjoyed Peart's implicit
recommendations of bands and albums.

There were tons of little nuggets in the book to keep any Rush-head happy: seeing the
lyrics for Workin' Them Angels (from "Snakes & Arrows") take shape as the epigraphs
for each chapter; seeing how his travel adventures formed the backstory for the
song; the exposition of Ellis, one of Peart's pre-Rush friends who is the "hero" in
Nobody's Hero (a song which always reminds me of the great friend I have
in Tom Chatt, who has been a hero of
mine - for every reason Peart touches on - for 27 years. Thanks, Tom); the story
behind Mission and the pressures placed on creative artists to continuously
be, well, creative.

Best of all for me was the insight into how Buddy Rich's drumming influenced
Peart. At first, I found this surprising; but listening carefully (especially
to later Rush works) exposes what music critics in the 1970s referred to
as "a jazzy drummer, like Bill Bruford." Peart quotes his teacher Freddie Gruber
as saying "There are no straight lines in nature," imploring Peart to think
away from the 1-(2)-3-(4) rock drum (straight) lines. One of Mr. Santoro's
drummer friends put it another way: Find the beats in a circle, not
a square. Beats on the downward stroke of the circle are
straight-ahead -- it keeps you moving. On the upswing of the
circle is laid-back -- you keep moving it. But never at the top or the
bottom.

As soon as I put the book down I had Groovin' Hard by the Buddy
Rich Big Band on the iPod. Non-traveling vacation music, straight
ahead.

Thursday Jul 10, 2008

Just finished Neal Peart's Ghost Rider, the story of his "healing road" of
motorcycle travels after the tragic deaths of his daughter and wife within
10 months of each other. Normally I find travel literature really boring;
I'd rather go and explore and get a sense of places first-hand than have
context prescribed for me. But Peart uses the travelogue to establish
the context for his moods, his thoughts, and in the second half of the book,
a series of letters to his friend Brutus (who co-stars in Roadshow:
Landscape with Drums, the successor story to Ghost Rider).

Snippets of Rush lyrics (written by Peart) appear at the opening and
close of various chapters, and as adjuncts Peart provides along the way.
It's eerie to see how some of his attitudes and thinking pre-tragedy
shaped his recovery after those events; it's even eerier
the Rush CD Roll the Bones deals with death and matters of
circumstance, written long before Peart experienced those first-hand.
At the close of the book, he describes the process by which he began
to pen lyrics again, for the Rush CD Vapor Trails (and it's
easy to pick up on the themes that later braced that CD, starting
with small personal victories).

I turned the last page of the book last night, and was left with
two striking thoughts that paired with a difficult day of work:

1. Tormented by time and space where he was, Peart rode his motorcyle.
Fast. Speed and distance (changes in space over time) counted for
more than direction. Forward progress.

2. He rediscovered hope by building on the things that gave him
joy: first his motorcycle, then nature, then caring about
the environment, and eventually meeting his second wife.

I put on Rush's Snakes & Arrows, a CD about hope and
faith, in some ways the third part of the Peart mental
travelogue, on the way home.
It's audio
Anne Lamott.